Danba (丹巴) is a small town along the border of the Tibetan and Qiang ethnic regions of Sichuan. It is known to adventure travelers for the ancient Qiang watchtowers that cling to the steep slopes of the surrounding mountain valleys.

In order to get up close and personal with these impressive monuments, we hired a driver and headed out into the villages of Zhonglu and Suopo near Danba. After roaming the terraced cornfields and orchards, we casually strolled by houses with towers waiting for an invitation. Hilariously, there weren’t many Continue…

News agencies are reporting a series of earthquakes just outside Yushu, Qinghai in China. You might remember that we passed through this region towards the beginning of our travels in late 2007. We hope our friends in Yushu, especially the amazing monks at the Princess Wangchen monastery, are all ok.

I was sitting here in Rajasthan watching “Desperate Housewives” repeats on television when the news cut in and announced that there had been a 7.8 earthquake in western Sichuan in the very area we traveled through last September. This is an area that means a great deal to us, and we made many friends during our time there.

After the traumatic conflicts between the ethnic Tibetans and the government, the area is now being challenged by this catastrophic natural event. We hope that our friends in Sichuan are safe. To help our readers better understand this area and its people, we have linked into a small collection of postings on the region. Just click on the thumbnails above, to read the posting.

In October last year, I was raving about our stay in Dargye Gompa, a beautiful and serene monastery in Sichuan, China. We spent several days there with three monks and a wonderful, small group of travelers, French Thomas, Fredy the Nomad, and Rachel.

Tibetan protests against Chinese occupation have flared up in Lhasa as well as across the Tibetan world from Xiahe in Gansu all the way to Delhi here in India. Officials claim that 10 people have been killed, but Tibetans calling friends and relatives here in India indicate it could be up to 70 people or more.

Even during our travels in Tibet, certain individuals indicated such protests were on their way. We did not relate this news in our blog because we were worried that Chinese officials would leap to conclusions about who had suggested the protests to us. The people who told us this are in no way referenced in our blog. (This may seem paranoid, but we discovered while using the Internet in China that even personal blogs were being monitored and blocked. How they manage to censor so much I will never understand.)

I’ve always said the San Diego-Tijuana border crossing is the most abrupt, most dramatic border transition I’ve ever experienced. It turns out, there is another…

Driving along the desert roads of the Tibetan plateau, the road peaked just before Nyalam to reveal a spectacular Himalayan panorama and a road heading down, down , down. After what seemed like an unending series of switchbacks, the open moonscape we were moving through gave way to tight canyons that slid their way through the snow-capped mountains. Stone villages and terraced fields clung to the steep cliffs, herds of yaks and goats wandered along the road.

As in many third world countries, trash management in China, and even more so in Tibet, is a huge problem particularly outside the tourist areas where there don’t seem to be any centralized places for disposing of trash. The more organized municipalities have random piles of trash distributed throughout the town while less organized places are evenly littered with garbage – it is just like living on a dump.

The most shocking examples of trash mismanagement, we encountered in Tibet. Continue…

Two days of driving to the Nepalese border and most of it was backtracking via the same route by which we had come. Our 17-day trip was almost over and I knew, we would hit the same spine-crumbling potholes again.

I didn’t expect a lot of excitement going back. Going through familiar terrain, though, provides a chance to relax and let your mind wander. I believe all of us were thinking about Continue…

After Nam Tso Lake, which supposedly is the highest fresh water lake in the world, the holy Lake Manasarovar is the highest salt water lake at an altitude of 4550 m (15,000 feet) and a popular Buddhist pilgrimage site. We spent a couple of nights there on our way back from the Guge Kingdom staying at a small guest house situated between the lake shores and the Chiu Monastery atop a small hill. Continue…

Guge was an ancient kingdom that once existed in the far west of Tibet about a day’s jeep travel north of Mt. Kailash. Set in a spectacular desert canyonlands, Guge was once a series of prospering irrigated valleys ruled from the monastic fortress complex at Tsaparang and large monastery at Tholing. Continue…

In 2007, Tony and Thomas decided to shake up their routine by traveling the globe and blogging about their adventures. Join us as we explore the world, discover its wonders, and experiment with our own version of contemporary living. More about us here.